A New Adventure

ByDani Pettrey
10 Comments

Hi friends, and happy Wednesday!

My family and I recently took a road trip from Maryland to Florida. My husband and I love road trips. When our girls were young, we made a cross-country trek to the Grand Canyon with lots of stops in between, including visiting family in New Mexico, where we used to live. We hiked the well-familiar Sandia Mountains, visited the Four Corners and Painted Desert, and, of course, saw the Grand Canyon.

But my favorite part of our trip was the fun roadside attractions that I discovered through research. We decided to find fun and quirky (the quirkier, the better) attractions to visit to break up the ride. To our surprise, this became our favorite part of our adventure.

Our daughters, both grown and married, look back on that trip with such fondness. Given that our youngest got altitude sickness hiking in New Mexico and was down for two days, then literally almost blacked out at the Four Corners, and her rough go continued, she remembers it as one of her absolute favorite trips.

We visited Foamhenge—an actual replica of Stonehenge made fully out of foam.

We stood on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, where the song references it.

Saw the glorious Grand Canyon.

Last week, we started a new adventure, this time with our grandkids. Once again, I looked for the quirkiest attractions on our route. We found some great ones.

We saw the world’s largest milkshake.

The largest moose (Piper would be proud).

The largest dresser and socks.

These are just a few of the attractions we saw. It was quite an adventure and a wonderful time of making memories. Plus, there was a lot of laughter. And, for all the grandparents out there, you know there’s no better sound than your grandchildren belly laughing.

Question for you:

What is your favorite vacation memory?

As always, thanks for joining me this week

Best,

Dani

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Praised by New York Times best-selling author Dee Henderson as "a name to look for in romantic suspense," Dani Pettrey has sold more than half a million copies of her novels to readers eagerly awaiting the next release. Dani combines the page-turning adrenaline of a thriller with the chemistry and happy-ever-after of a romance.

10 Comments

  1. What fun memories! I’d have to say my favorite is from my own childhood when we drove from Idaho to California (Disneyland, the site of the home where my mom was born in 1914—the steps were still there but no house—the Big Sur, the redwoods). I was ten at the time. Another favorite was a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons. There was a grizzly mauling in Yellowstone the week before we left and I was a nervous wreck whenever we had food out on the table. LOL!

  2. My greatest vacation was bittersweet.
    It was the one-year anniversary of my mother’s
    homegoing plus my birthday and Thanksgiving.
    I was born on Thanksgiving Day.
    Friends had been after me to come visit them
    so, I thought, why not.
    So off to Hong Kong I went and spent two weeks.
    I’ll never forget their kindness to me nor the trip.
    We even celebrated Thanksgiving and my birthday.

    1. Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss. Losing a mom is beyond hard. Glad you had a lovely visit though. Thanks so much for sharing.

  4. My Favorite memory was our trip through Yellowstone National Park where we saw the animals up close and personal. A white Grizzly actually came up to the car (as Mom was hurriedly rolling up the window) and stood up and looked in at us the canned dinner! We also saw a mother Grizzly with a cub crawl into a station wagon and while the cub stood up to look in the window at Momma, she came out with the owner-of-the-car’s picnic lunch she proceeded to dole out and eat the sandwiches and get the cup off the thermos, but was unable to get the plug off the neck opening. There were so many fun things and animals on that trip!

  6. I love that! What a fun way to make memories and to keep from getting bored on a road trip. My favorite vacation story is from when I was a child. We stopped at the Grand Canyon on the drive from Texas to California, and I could only spare a one-minute glance at it because I was in the middle of reading Jane Eyre for the first time and couldn’t put it down! 🙂

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